Stephens vs Kasatkina 05/06/2018

Sloane Stephens vs Daria Kasatkina Tennis Prediction

Sloane Stephens wins the last eleven games of her fourth-round encounter with Anett Konatveit to book her first French Open quarterfinal (6-2 6-0). Stephens exposed no break points in this 52-minute match as Kontaveit hit six winners to 21 unforced errors.
Out of her previous six appearances at Paris, Stephens reached the fourth round during four consecutive years between 2012-15 but failed to go one step beyond every time, losing to the likes of Sharapova, Stosur, Halep and Serena Williams, respectively.
This year, the reigning US Open champion started her campaign by facing two outside top 100 opponents, lucky loser Arantxa Rus and qualifier Magdalena Frech. Next, she was on the verge of a third-round exit when #57 Camila Giorgi served for the match twice.
Stephens had reached the semifinal of a tour-level clay event three times, twice at the International tournament of Strasbourg (2012 and 2015) and once on green-clay courts of Charleston in 2016, where she went on to win her only WTA clay title.
Daria Kasatkina maintains her mastery over Caroline Wozniacki as she defeats the reigning Australian Open champion for the third time this season. The match was suspended on Sunday, but on resumption, the Russian won three games in a row to seal the win.
This is Kasatkina’s first quarterfinal at a Grand Slam, having lost the fourth round of the 2017 US Open to Kaia Kanepi. In fact, the 21-year-old started the campaign this fortnight by avenging Kanepi (6-4 6-1), followed by wins over Sakkari and Flipkens.
Kasatkina has won 24 matches in the 2018 season so far, which includes runner-up finishes at Indian Wells (l. Osaka) and Dubai (l. Svitolina), and a quarterfinal at Madrid (l. Kvitova). In 2017, she had to wait until September (Tokyo) to acquire the number of wins.
The Russian has defeated all reigning slam champions in the past year and leads the season leader-board in top 10 wins (7, tied with Kvitova). She can debut into the top 10 at the end of the fortnight, but she would need to reach the semifinal to have a chance.
The head-to-head is split at one win to each. Stephens defeated Kasatkina en route to her 2016 Charleston title campaign, but the 14th seed returned the favor this year at the Indian Wells, defeating the American in straight sets (6-4 6-3).